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BEQUEST OF 

ALBERT ADSIT CLEMONS 
(Not available for exchange) 



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PRIVATE LETTERS 

OF A 

FRENCH WOMAN, 


BY 

MADEMOISELLE CLAIRE FOLDAIROLLES. 

(The French Governess.) 



NEW YORK: 

Copyright, 1895, by 

IV. Dillingham , Publisher, 

Successor to G. W. Carleton & Co 4 
mdcccxcv. 

[All Rights Reserved .] 











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Bequest 

Albert Adsit OlemonS 
Aug. 24, 1938 

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MY AMERICAN PUPILS 

WHO HAVE TAUGHT ME MUCH MORE THAN I 
' HAVE EVER BEEN ABLE TO TEACH THEM 
AND PAID ME MOST LIBERALLY 
INTO THE BARGAIN. 

I DEDICATE THESE PAGES WITH A THOUSAND 
THANKS AND A THOUSAND 
KIND REMEMBRANCES. 

CLAIRE FOLDAIROLLES. 
( The French Governess .) 


New York, April, 1895 


✓ 






\ 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

I. Divorcelets .... 9 

II. Will the Kiss Become Obso- 
lete ? 22 

III. Old Men’s Darlings . . 36 

IV. The “ Double X Girl,” or 

Love in the Twentieth Cen- 
tury 46 

V. The Woman’s Man . . 59 

VI. The Cynic in Petticoats . 74 

VII. Arms and the Woman . . 89 

[vii] 


viii 


Contents . 


Page 

VIII. Professional Love-Makers . 102 

IX. Summer Morals of the New 

York Girl . . . .114 

X. Elimination of the Old Maid 

from American Society . 125 

XI. After the Bicycle Girl, What? 136 

XII. Garden Parties, or Flirtation al 
Fresco 


. 147 


PRIVATE LETTERS 


OF A 

FRENCH WOMAN. 


I. 

DIVORCELETS. 

Yes, dear Countess, you’re right, I would 
have made an admirable mother, and it’s a 
great shame that the right man never came 
along, for in spite of the fact that I have 
“ remained single and talked of population,” 
it has always been my opinion that Dr. 
Goldsmith was right in saying that the 

[ 9 ] 


Divorcelets . 


io 


honest man (or woman, of course) who 
marries and brings up a large family is a 
real public benefactor. 

Not that I would have been ambitious to 
emulate the example of Count Abensberg, 
who in Henry II. ’s progress presented a 
family of twenty-three children to that 
monarch ; but, if they could have been 
healthy in mind and body, I shouldn’t have 
objected to a good half-dozen. But the 
good Lord had other uses for me. It has 
not been given unto me to sit by my own 
fireside and spin, or to throw the shuttle 
in my own loom. I have been forced to 
content myself with the crumbs that fall 
from masters’ tables ; to spend the strength 


Divorcelets, 


i i 


of my maternal instinct on other women’s 
children. 

Hence my interest in babies, and hence 
my solicitude for “ divorcelets,” made or- 
phans by decree of divorce courts, for 
when man and woman cease to be husband 
and wife they cease to be father and 
mother. 

Is my woman’s reasoning defective ? 
Pardy, I trow not. True, your decree may 
make ample provision for the “ care and 
custody ” of the infant, but, alas, dear 
Countess, what provision does your decree 
make for tender love and watchful care, 
for home influences, for the potent force of 
example, for the divine effect of that “ one 


12 


Divorcelets . 


flesh ” mystery which makes it impossible 
for the child to tell whether he loves papa 
or mamma bfcst ? 

What provision does your decree make 
for the now “ lacking half ” which was al- 
ways ready to piece out, strengthen and 
complete the celestial partnership ? What 
assurance does your decree give that the 
divorcelet now condemned to love two 
masters shall not end by hating one or both 
of them. 

Even Solomon in his wide range of 
thought never seems to have put this 
question to himself. 

What becomes of the stock when the 
firm of Man, Wife, Love & Co. apply for a 


Divorcelets. 


13 


decree of dissolution? In any ordinary, 
earthly co-partnership, it is easy enough to 
dispose of the assets, and to apply them as 
far as they will go to the payment of the 
firm’s debts; but you cannot put babies up 
at auction ; you cannot even specify that 
the divorced parties have each an undivided 
half-interest in the divorcelets. 

One or the other of the parents must be 
annihilated, be put to death by order of the 
court. 

Oh, murder most foul, and yet how ready 
is the magistrate of to-day to decree it. 
It’s terrible ! And yet, dear Countess, it 
does seem that there is no help for it — that 
the world must go on marrying and giving 


Divorcelets. 


*4 


in marriage, go on making children, go on 
creating divorcelets. 

I don’t know whether it will interest you 
or not, dear Countess, but I take the liberty 
to send you a copy of a very strange letter 
which was composed by one of my pupils 
— and you will hardly credit it when I tell 
you a child of twelve. But these wonder- 
ful Americans are not hampered by such 
ordinary limitations as sex, age, education 
or environment. 

LETTER FROM A DIVORCELET TO A 
SCHOOL FRIEND. 

“ Dear Hallie : — Since I saw you last 
I have had my picture in the papers. Just 


Divorcelets . 


15 


think of it ! It wasn’t very good, however. 
Well, I must tell you all about it. 

“You see, papa and mamma made up 
their minds to get a * divorce.’ That’s 
what everybody’s papa and mamma ask for 
when they can’t get along together. You 
go to a place called the court for it. I’ve 
been there twice, and the men crowded 
around me to get a look at me, but I wasn’t 
frightened a bit, for one said, ‘What a 
beautiful child,’ and another whispered, 
1 Isn’t she a little princess.’ Well, you see, 
to get a ‘ divorce,’ as they call it, it is nec- 
essary to prove that one’s papa or mamma 
has been bad. 

“ I don’t know how bad, but pretty bad, 


i6 


Ditiorcelets . 


anyway. You will laugh when I tell you 
that mamma said that papa was bad and 
papa said that mamma was bad. Good 
gracious, Hallie, if they are both bad, why, 
then, I must be bad, too. But I don’t feel 
so, strange to say. Any way, Mademoiselle 
says I am one of the best girls in her 
classes, and Mademoiselle knows what she 
is talking about, for she comes from Paris. 
Oh, I do want to go to Paris so much. 
They say it is lovely there, and I believe it, 
for just see what lovely things French heels 
are, and French candies, too. Oh, my, oh, 
my! 

“ Well, don’t tell any one, but it turned 
out that poor papa was really the bad one, 


Divorcelets. 


n 


after all. I can’t believe it, he is so sweet, 
so good, so kind, so loving. He didn’t 
seem to care, and when I said : ‘ Papa, are 
you a bad man ?’ he only smiled and an- 
swered : ‘No, my darling ; I’m only making 
believe, just to please mamma.’ 

“ Did you ever hear anything so ridicu- 
lous, Hallie ? But I tell you it must be 
great sport to please people by being bad. 
I’d like to try just to see how it feels, 
wouldn’t you ? But the man in the court 
thought papa was bad in good earnest, for 
he looked very solemn, and then said, in a 
deep voice, that he was sorry, but that he 
was obliged to undo papa and mamma. 
You know what I mean — untie them. And 
then I whispered to mamma and said : 


i8 


Divorcelets . 


“‘ But what is to become of me ?” 

“ ‘ Oh, you’ll come to me, darling,’ she re- 
plied. ‘You’ll be all mine — all mine for- 
ever.’ 

“‘But, said I. ‘I want papa to have 
some of me, too. It isn’t fair. You know 
how he loves to romp with me mornings, to 
carry me up to bed when I fall asleep in his 
arms, to bring me candies, to sit by me 
when I am sick, to take me out for a walk, 
to buy me birthday and Christmas presents, 
to— to— ’ 

“ ‘ Sh, darling ! be quiet,’ said mamma, j 
“ ‘ You may go to see your father if he gets 
to be a good man and promises on his sacred 
word not to set you against me.’ 




Divorcelets. 


19 


“ ‘ See here, mamma,’ I cried, * you shan’t 
talk that way about papa. I won’t have it. 
He is only making believe bad, and he said 
you asked him to do so, so that the man in 

► 

the court could untie you. 

“ * I belong half to him and half to you, 
and you shan’t cheat him out of his half, 
I can tell you that, now. You may not 
love him any more, but that’s nothing to 
me. You don’t like ice cream since you 
had the typhoid fever, but you know I just 
love it. I could eat it three times a day.’ 

“ ‘ But, my darling, my darling,’ ex- 
claimed mamma, ‘ listen to reason. Your 
father — ’ 

“ ‘ You shan’t call him my father,’ I re- 


20 


Divorcelets. 


plied, snapping my eyes at her. ‘ He is 
my papa, my dear, dear papa, and I am 
going to stand up for his rights if I die for 
it, and for your rights, too. I don’t care a 
snap what that man in the court said, he is 
nothing to me. Who gave him the right 
to take me away from papa ? Doesn’t the 
Bible say: “Honor thy father and thy 
mother,” and isn’t God’s court a better 
court than that one you took me into ?’ 

“ ‘ I tell you that papa must have his 
rights even if I am taken before Solomon’s 
judgment seat like the child that was 
claimed by two women, and so to settle the 
dispute the king said : “ Cut the baby in 
two, and give half to one and half to the 


Divorcelets. 


21 


other.” * And when mamma heard me talk 
like this she got scared and began to cry 
and promised me on her sacred word that 
papa should have his half of me. And 
now I am the happiest girl in the whole 
city, and I don’t care how much they call 
me a divorcelet.” 


II. 


WILL THE KISS BECOME OBSO- 
LETE. 

The kiss, mes bons pmis, has been put to 
strange uses since its invention. Adam 
called the dormant Eve to life by a kiss ; 
Judas betrayed his divine Master with a kiss ; 
Marc Antony bartered away an empire for 
a kiss ; Othello kissed Desdemona and then 
murdered her ; Napoleon kissed Josephine 
and then divorced her, and Werther kissed 
Charlotte and then blew his brains out. 

Some enemy of our sex hath said : 

[22] 


Will the Kiss Become Obsolete ? 23 


“ When a woman contemplates the com- 
mission of an unlawful act, she goes to con- 
fession,” and I retort by saying : “ When a 
man has it in mind to be particularly mean 
or disloyal, he begins with a kiss.” 

But, vies ires chers , I think that we shall 
be agreed as to one thing, namely : The 
kiss has ever been endowed with a most 
subtle and mysterious potency, making for 
good or evil in about equal proportions, no 
matter whether like the Magdalene’s it 
falls upon the feet, or like Penelope’s, on 
the cheek, or Phryne’s, on the lips ; whether 
it be like Juliet’s, “ a long, long kiss, a kiss 
of youth and love,” or like Hero’s, mixed 
with the double salt of tears and sea water ; 


24 Will the Kiss Become Obsolete ? 


whether it smell of “bread and butter,” be 
flavored like the heifer’s breath, with the 
odor of craunched wild flowers, or give off 
the strong and heavy perfume of musk or 
patchouli. 

Now the American people are extremely 
fond of kissing, and not, comprenez bien , such 
kissing as the Russians practise, to wit, set- 
ting the lips against the cheek ; nor, again, 
such osculation as is current in France and 
Germany, namely, the calm and chaste 
pressure of the lips upon the back of the 
woman’s hand. Nay, far from it. This is 
hardly called kissing over here. 

As my frivolous pupil, Miss Kate, puts it : 

“ Kissing the hair, or the hand, or the 


Will the Kiss Become Obsolete ? 25 


cheek, or the brow, is no more entitled to be 
called kissing than executing a nocturne on 
a wireless practise piano would be entitled 
to be called music. The kiss can only be 
known when four lips are set in delicious 
parallel and two souls flash together across 
this velvet bridge. Such was the kiss that 
cost Menelaus his Queen, Cleopatra her 
kingdom, Francesca her life, Sappho her 
reason and Marguerite a murderer’s cell. 

“ Mais, chere Mademoiselle," continued 
Miss Kate, “ I admit that there is a great 
deal of promiscuous kissing done in our 
country, kissing which has no more soul than 
that land described by the poet as ‘ coldly 
sweet and deadly fair.’ It begins in the nurs- 


26 Will the Kiss Become Obsolete ? 


ery ; later takes on the smell of bread and 
butter ; later still is flavored with chewing 
gum and slate pencils ; later still is mingled 
with the cheap perfume of the poor young 
man in his first romance, or with the cologne 
water of the country beau, or with the faint 
odors of iodoform or carbolic acid hanging 
about the medical student. Mamma tells 
me that I must never permit a young man 
to kiss me on the lips ; that it is positively 
wrong. Do I obey ? Certainement , Mad- 
emoiselle. I never permit it ; but, suppose 
I can’t help myself ? 

“You may remember a certain famous 
placard that was hung upon a wall in your 
dear Paris: 1 Defense a Dieu de faire mir- 


Will the Kiss Become Obsolete ? 27 


acles dans ce lieul The New York boys are 
all members of athletic clubs; they may 
not display very muscular legs when they 
go spinning along on their safeties ; but, 
sapristie , they have good arms and it would 
be a useless job to attempt to resist them. 
The struggle would simply result in crump- 
ling one’s fichu, collarette or shoulder-poufs, 
plastering the poor fellow’s coat with face 
powder, disarranging one’s bang, and get- 
ting one’s self worked up into a ridiculous 
state of excitement, all for nothing. 

“ So Blanche and I surrender under pro- 
test, overpowered, as the military men 
phrase it, by superior numbers, and in so 


28 Will the Kiss Become Obsolete? 


doing, Mademoiselle, we obey our mammas 
and get the kiss into the bargain/’ 

“ Allons done, bonne amici' you exclaim, 
“what is it you are talking about ? You 
set out, so we imagined, to prove that the 
kiss is fated to become obsolete, and here 
you are intoning an epithalamium, chanting 
a madrigal, or setting your soul to the music 
of spoken words/’ 

Eh bien, mes chers, to the point ; yes, I 
verily believe that the kiss, as it is described 
by the poets, and as it. is often performed 
on the American stage — where it not infre- 
quently interrupts the course of the play or 
opera, causing the audience to sit with 
parted lips, breathless with the strain of 


Will the Kiss Become Obsolete 9 29 


awakened imagination — is really destined 
ere many years to become an unknown 
quantity in highly cultivated circles. 

Vous savez bien , mes chers , that I am 
nothing if not pedagogical, that I am al- 
ways the school-marm ; hence permit me to 
be historical. In ancient times people 
embraced each other. This was before 
the days of the kiss and before the days of 
starch. Both men and women wore soft, 
loose, flowing robes. The embrace was 
easy, convenient and pleasant. It left no 
creases in the soft silk or fine linen. Arms 
could be wrapt around the loved object 
without doing any harm. But now, mes 
chers , this is all changed. This is the age 


30 Will the Kiss Become Obsolete ? 


of upstanding bows, bristling ruches, ruffles, 
bouillontes , poufs> and chonx of satin rib- 
bon, as it is also the age of stiffly starched 
cuffs, collars and shirt fronts. 

Voila pourquoi , the embrace long ago fell 
into poetic impotency. People don’t em- 
brace each other any more. The club man 
is unwilling to appear at the card table at 
midnight with creased shirt front and flat- 
tened cuffs. Lovers stand at arms’ length 
and kiss good night. They may no longer 
whisper in the language of the great Eng- 
lish bard : “ Arms, take your last embrace,” 
and then fold each other so closely that 
they are literally “ imparadised in one 
another’s arms.” 


Will the Kiss Become Obsolete ? 31 


Ah, non , mes amis , nothing of the sort ; all 
that is past. And so, too, the kiss will go, 
for complexions are gradually going. In a 
few decades more the faces of our women 
will lose their last trace of natural beauty 
and art will be called upon to make good 
the loss, to cover the ravages wrought in 
our so-called civilization. The red will fade 
from our lips, as it has from our cheeks ; 
eyelashes and eyebrows will become thin 
and scattering. Our skin will take on a 
saffron tone, even in the early twenties, and 
our eyes lose their sparkle at the same 
time. 

We shall be as if bleached ana singed, 
but, thanks to the ingenuity of man, we 


32 Will the Kiss Become Obsolete ? 


shall be restored to our old-time glory. It 
will be the work of art, however, and the 
moisture of the kiss would spot and fleck it 
as quickly as a child’s fingers would mar 
the beauty of a delicate pastel. The kiss 
will be obliged to go, go as the embrace has 
gone, go as the kissing of hands went when 
the tightly buttoned kid glove came to re- 
place the soft, silken mit„ which the lover 
could so easily draw down to find a warm 
place for his kisses ; go as the toast to 
sweethearts went when there were no more 
loose slippers to drink them out of ; go as 
the secret love letters went when there were 
no more cUcollete Corsages into which to 
thrust them at sound of mamma’s foot- 
steps. 


Will the Kiss Become Obsolete? 33 


Helas, mes chers , that it should come to 
this. And yet my fair pupils, Blanche and 
Kate, to whom I have made known my ap- 
prehensions, merely shrug their graceful 
shoulders and purse up their pretty lips and 
say : 

“ Quelle betise, Mademoiselle. Doesn’t the 
all-wise Solomon say that ‘ to everything 
there is a season and a time to every pur- 
pose under the heaven,’ and doesn’t he 
also say that there is a ‘ time to embrace 
and a time to refrain from embracing ?’ 

“ Eh bie 7 i, nous ne changer ons pas cela> 
jamais de la vieE 


III. 

OLD MEN’S DARLINGS. 

I believe it was witty Sophie Gay who j 
said : “ A man of twenty to love me ; a j 

man of forty to defend me ; a man of sixty 
to pay my bills.” But I can subscribe to no 
such flippant philosophy as that. Many of 
the world’s finest spirits have preserved 
their flavor and their bouquet ’way into the 
eighties. It is astonishing what a differ- 
ence there is between men and women in 
this respect. Women ripen in a night, 
while men continue to grow even after they 
[34] 


Old Men's Darlings . 


35 


have shifted into the “ lean and slippered 
pantaloon.” 

But if there be one art which, more than 
another, softens and ripens most deliciously 
in the male mind as it grows old, it is the 
art of making love. Many of Ovid’s most 
beautiful amatory poems were written after 
he was fifty years of age, and Swift was 
nearly an old man when he put forth that 
beautiful poem in praise of the mysterious 
Vanessa, and I would be willing to wager 
that the aged Petrarca, when, seated in his 
library with his head resting on a book, he 
dropped off into his last sleep, was meditat- 
ing some new “ mellifluous conceits,” in 
praise of Laura’s white throat or vermeil 
lips. 


36 


Old Men's Darlings . 


So steady and miraculous was Goethe’s 
growth as a lover and a worshiper of our 
sex, that he was nearly sixty years old be- 
fore he could bring himself to marry a 
woman, although he had probably made 
love to more women and made it better 
than any man of his day and generation. 

And now I come to my main question : 
Why is it that there are so many women, 
comparatively young and beautiful, who 
are willing to become old men's darlings ? 
Our learned countryman, La Rochefou- 
cauld, has stated the fact, but has not ex- 
plained it. Says he : 

“ In their first love affairs, women love 
their lovers ; in their later ones, what they 
want is the love, not so much the man.” 


Old Mens Darlings . 


37 


Oui , waxy pourquoi ? Because, stupid, it is 
just as I have been telling you. The older 
a man grows the better he understands a 
woman. While the young man has simply 
been studying some one woman, he has 
been devoting his attention to the sex. 
His investigations have had all the certainty 
and nicety which the real scientist puts into 
his work. 

He can button a glove, manipulate a but- 
ton hook, adjust a veil, tuck a shoulder puff 
into a jacket sleeve, pin up the gatherings 
of a skirt, repair a tear with a safety pin, 
straighten a hat, tie a shapely bow, correct 
the hang of a skirt, draw on an overshoe or 
put a rebellious strand of hair into place, 


38 


Old Men's Darlings . 


with the skill of a Parisian dressing-maid. 
Nay, more. He is a charm and a delight 
in a sick room, and he can braid a lady’s 
tresses, smooth her pillow, make her a cup 
of coffee that would suit a Frenchman, or a 
cup of tea that would please an Englishman, 
cook an omelet, broil a chop, dress a salad, 
mix a pick-me-up, make a rarebit, or if my 
lady needs trained nursing, he goes about 
the business as if he carried his diploma in 
his side pocket, turns her, lifts her, props 
her up, and is as mild and patient with her 
as if she were a sick child ; with no thought 
of self he dismisses clubs and theatres and 
horses from his mind and, faithful as a 
watchdog, sits down by that bedside till the 


Old Men s Darlings. 


39 


pale lips part again and the brown eyes 
open and the old smile comes back and the 
low, sweet voice speaks his reward : 

“ Dear old boy, are you there? And you 
haven’t been down to the club to-day ? Nor 
out to the races either ? What a fortunate 
woman I am ! 

“Why, there was no reason for your 
giving up all your pleasures. How good 
you are to me, and yet I am sometimes so 
cross, so unreasonable, so full of whims and 
notions. But, dear old boy, I’ll be a better 
girl in the future. I promise you that I 
will.” 

The “ dear old boy ” smiles a bit incredu- 
lously, for he really doesn’t believe her, and 


40 


Old Men's Darlings . 


what is more, he doesn’t want to believe 
her. He knew what he was doing when he 
married her ; he knew what the price of an 
“old man’s darling” was; he knew that 
she would be a luxury ; that she would 
come high ; but he felt that it would be 
better than setting his affection on some 
selfish pleasure. 

She might keep him from the card room 
and supper table, but would he not be the 
gainer in the end? Would he not be hap- 
pier in the enjoyment of her pleasure over 
a new Paris hat than in his own satisfaction 
over a championship at whist ? 

It is true the world had sneered at his 
devotion and insinuated that he was the 


4i 


Old Mens Darlings. 


victim of a pink and white tyranny. It had 
predicted, too, that they would both tire of 
their bargain, that there can be absolutely 
nothing in common between a man of sixty 
and a woman of five and twenty. 

But the trouble with the world is that its 
judgments are usually based upon facts and 
figures which are often qualified to deceive. 
A census taker will tell you how many 
heads there are in a country, but not how 
many hearts. They are like witnesses, they 
must be weighed, not counted. 

One of my pupils, the dainty and delicate 
Miss Blanche, lately assured me that there 
were quite a number of girls in her set who 
were bent upon marrying oldish men. 


42 


Old Mens Darlings. 


“ You see, Mademoiselle,” said this maid 
of many virtues, “we American women 
haven’t the strength of our great grand- 
dames. 

“Why, would you believe it, at a family 
gathering lately I attempted to make my 
appearance at the fete in the heavy, figured 
silk gown, whaleboned stays, wadded petti- 
coat and ruffled skirts which had consti- 
tuted a ball costume for a beauty in our 
family some sixty years ago. I actually 
fainted beneath the load. Imagine a New 
York club youngster in the armor of Rich- 
ard Cceur de Lion, and you will get some 
idea of how I looked. 

“ Why, the weight of one of my dancing 


43 


Old Men s Darlings. 


dresses, gloves, fan, flowers, slippers and 
all, is only seven pounds — not much more 
than the clothes of a year-old babe, if you 
throw in the silk hood and the long wadded 
cloak. In a word, we are not made for 
rough usage, and Monsieur Hamlet would 
be quite justified in calling us i Miss 
Frailty.’ 

“ Now your ‘ oldish man,’ Mademoiselle, 
is usually a collector, his bookcases are 
filled with dainty de luxe bindings, his 
cabinets show forth most exquisite bits of 
carved ivory, eggshell china, Sevres porce- 
lain and cinque cento chasings. 

“ He has a palm of satin, with a velvet 
touch, and his fingers close around these 


44 


Old Mens Darlings . 


beloved art objects with a contact that is as 
soft as it is sure, as light as it is loving. 
Now, we girls want to become ‘ objets dart 9 
to some soulful collector. We long for just 
such a silk-lined cabinet to repose in, just 
such a velvet touch when we are lifted out ; 
we want to be handled by a connoisseur — 
one who will be content to look upon us, to 
fondle us, to lavish pet names upon us. In 
other words, ma chbre , we want to be loved 
systematically, just as the bibliophile loves 
his books, not to read them, nor to dog-ear 
and crumple their white pages, but for the 
beauty of their letter press, the width of 
their margins, the artistic finish of their 
bindings, the exquisite patterns of their 


Old Men's Darlings . 


45 


tooling, the wonderful symmetry of their 
title pages, there to repose in those beauti- 
ful cases where the hungry, * cramming ’ 
student may never get at them to rip up 
their snowy pages with his paper cutter, 
just like cheap, common, ordinary, every- 
day books which are made to read.” 


IV. 

THE “DOUBLE X GIRL,” OR LOVE 
IN THE TWENTIETH CEN- 
TURY. 

Paris, mon General, has given us the 
“ end of the century girl,” but the “ double 
X girl,” or woman of the twentieth century, 
will come from this side of the Atlantic. 
Even in the last decade the progress has 
been enormous over here. Woman has 
gone into everything, from pulpit to poli- 
tics, from ranche to race-course, from law to 

literature, from clubs to calisthenics, from 

[46] 


The “ Double X Girl. 


47 


business to bowling, from cycles to cigar- 
ettes. She has mounted the rostrum man- 
fashion, and she is riding many of the male 
hobbies in the same way. There is no 
dilemma that has a horn big enough to 
frighten her. She will soon be in the 
saddle — for she is already in the divided 
skirt — with a foot in each stirrup and a 
spur on each little heel. Nothing will stop 
the “double X girl ” save another deluge 
or a thirty years’ war. You, mon General, 
were born to command, but you might as 
well cry halt to a herd of wild horses as to 
attempt to stem the progress of this 
woman’s movement. 

If it were an insurrection, you might sup- 


48 The “ Double X Girl. 


press it ; if it were a microbe, the chemists 
might kill it with a new germicide ; if it 
were a new ailment, the doctors might pos- 
sibly discover a specific for it, or if it were 
a bit of Midway Plaisaunce business, the po- 
lice might close it up. 

But it is none of these, mon Gfrieral it is 
a twist of the times, a kink in the mortal 
coil. You can’t get at it ; it is not visible 
to the human eye ; we can feel it and know 
it only by its effect. They call it a “ move- 
ment ” over here ; but there is really no 
“ movement ” about it, for we don’t see it 
until it gets there. 

You, mon GMral , like the centurion of 
old, have always been a man of authority, 


The “Double X Girl. 


49 


saying unto one, “ Go,’* and he goeth, and 
to another, “ Come,” and he cometh. And 
you have exercised this authority over your 
sweetheart, your wife and your daughters 
and your sisters and your cousins. 

But this must all come to an end. The 
woman of the twentieth century will be a 
law unto herself. Instead of wishing, like 
Portia, that she were “ a thousand times 
more fair, ten thousand times more rich,” 
for some man’s sake, she will take care of 
herself, and tell the man that she expects 
him to go and do likewise. Love in the 
twentieth century, mon General , will be 
quite a different article from what it has 
been in bygone ages. It will be practical, 


50 


The “ Double X Girl. 


reasonable, sensible, judicious and logical. 
Its gait will be steady, but not fast, and it 
will not be wobbly on its legs when it comes 
to a halt. It will be a good roadster, rather 
than a flyer. The dividends will not be so 
large, but they will last longer. There will 
be no pace that kills, but a comfortable jog 
trot. Love will be sipped, not gulped 
down, and transports and chills equally 
avoided. 

“ The problem which is to be met and 
solved by the woman of the twentieth cen- 
tury/’ said a priestess of the reformed cult 
to me, the other day, “ is to get rid of the 
bad name that has stuck to her for so many 
centuries. St. Paul is largely to blame for 


The “ Double X Girl. 


5i 


this, and later, St. Chrysostom took a hand 
in this abuse of the sex, calling us i a neces- 
sary evil,’ ‘ a natural temptation,’ 1 a desira- 
ble calamity,’ ‘ a domestic peril,’ ‘ a deadly 
fascination,’ and ‘ a painted ill.’ ” 

“ This everlasting threnody has been 
chanted all the way down to the present 
day, and the result has been that the poor, 
dear, innocent mothers have actually pois- 
oned their sons’ minds against their own 
sex, taking up the refrain of the Proverbs, 
in which women are rarely mentioned save 
in condemnation. C ’ est terrible , Mademoi- 
selle. The first thing we have to do is to 
teach the men that we are just as trust- 
worthy, just' as reasonable, just as capable 


52 


The “ Double X Girl . ” 


of being “ bons garqons ” as they are, 
and that, if they will only give us half a 
chance, we will prove it to them. Up to 
date the men have actually encouraged us 
to be fickle, flirtatious and frail and flabby 
of purpose, and it has been accounted a 
glory unto us to use our beauty as a snare, 
our voices like sirens, our kisses like Delk 
lahs, and our caresses like Phrynes. All 
this must come to an end, and we women 
must be taught that we can no longer take 
up something when we have laid nothing 
down, or that we can reap when we haven’t 
sown. 

“ But, Mademoiselle,” continued this 
priestess of the new cult, “ don’t imagine 


The “Double X Girll' 


53 


that, because we shall unlearn those pretty- 
tricks of pouting lip and the tearful eye, that 
‘ ultima ratio feminarum ’ — don’t, I say, 
get an idea that we shall not know how to 
make ourselves necessary to men’s happi- 
ness. Only it will be a question of ‘ gen- 
eral utility,’ and not as it is now, one of 
very special and restricted usefulness. In 
this country the beautiful woman stands 
the best chance of getting a husband ; the 
rich women comes next. Women who 
have neither beauty nor money must hustle 
for a man. They must take up with what 
they can get — very poor articles, oftentimes 
— just a little better than none. But thank 
Heaven,” exclaimed the priestess of the 


54 


The “ Double X Girl ' 


new cult, “ the woman of the twentieth 
century will be a ‘ wage earner,’ and that 
will command a respect for her greater than 
she ever enjoyed in the so-called age of 
chivalry. The * home,’ that monumental 
dome beneath which man’s selfishness 
reached its greatest development, will fall 
to ruin, and the kitchen fire, which has al- 
ways been hot enough to scorch the milk 
of human kindness, but never hot enough 
to brown the crust of the home-made pie, 
will go out ; and the nursery, too, that 
miniature Bedlam, will be closed up. There 
will be no * wash-days,’ with picked-up din- 
ners. There will be no energies wasted in 
such senseless contentions as the fashion- 


The “ Double X Girll 


55 


able attire of to-day. Clothes will be hy- 
gienic, and food scientific, pleasures rational, 
and marriage the union of two reasonable 
creatures, animated by a deep and lasting 
desire of being helpful unto each other.” 

Voila> mon General. There you have an 
outline of the new cult — a glance at things 
as they are to be in the twentieth century. 
No doubt you stroke your snow-white 
mustachios and exclaim : “ Par die ! I am 

quite satisfied with woman as she is in this 
day and generation. I have no fault to 
find with her, I admire her neat, trim figure 
as displayed in a traveling-dress ; I look 
with the eye of a connoisseur on the deli- 
cious coquetry of her morning wrapper ; I 


56 The “ Double X Girl. 


can grow eloquent over that ripened loveli- 
ness which seems as if melted and poured 
into a reception gown, or I can gaze with 
an almost rapt and religious feeling upon 
the delicate and dainty charms of the debu- 
tante, bursting from the sheathing of her 
white tulle like the eager petals of an open- 
ing rosebud. Pardie, Mademoiselle, I 
don’t see why woman is not a thing of most 
excellent and admirable perfection just as 
she is. A tous les diables with these reform- 
ers, as they call themselves. Show me a 
‘ reformer,’ and I will show you a woman 
who has a grudge against some son of 
Adam, because her hand pressure evoked 
no counter squeeze from his flabby palm, 


The “ Double X Girl. 


57 


because her smiles lighted no fires in his 
cold eyes, because her voice awakened no 
echoes in his dull ears, because her sighs 
stirred no conflict in his indifferent soul, 
because her tears lent no softness to his 
stony heart.” 

Ah, mon General, you are like the light 
that shone in the darkness and the darkness 
comprehended it not. You belong to the 
old rtgimd ; but that is past forever. You 
have loved many women, mon Glntral, and 
you have been severely wounded, but never 
by one of Cupid’s darts. The padding of 
your uniform coat has afforded most effect- 
ual protection to your heart, and you have 
timed the intensity of your passions to the 
stay of your regiment in garrison towns. 


58 The “ Double X Girl 


Now, the woman of the twentieth cen- 
tury will have no use for a man like you, 
mon GMral, As Shylock said, “ I will 
buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, 
walk with you, but I will not eat with you, 
drink with you or pray with you.” So the 
girl of the twentieth century will say to the 
young man of that date, “ I will read with 
you, talk with you, sing with you, laugh 
with you, chaff with you ; but I’ll not lark 
with you, spark with you, nor love with you 
until you cry with me, * The little Blind 
God is dead. Long live Cupid, who can 
see what he is about.’ ” 


V. 


THE “WOMAN’S MAN.” 

You say you don’t understand what I 
mean by “ woman’s man.” I didn’t im- 
agine that you would and therefore I pro- 
pose to tell you. Know, then, my dear 
child, that all men are not alike. Some 
men are good at a trade, others are dabsters 
at cards, others still are best at a drinking 
bout. Some men please women, others 
don’t, even when they pay our bills. 

Some men are so useful to other men 
j that the other men would rather not be, 

[59] 


6o 


The “Womans Man. 


than be without them. They are the men 
who are said to “ sleep together.” 

Some men understand horses, others 
horned cattle, others fruit raising, and others 
fish culture. The reason why they under- 
stand these things is because they have 
made a study of them. 

But there is one creature in this world 
that a man can’t fully understand by mak- 
ing a study of her, and that creature is 
woman. And the reason is that man is 
never willing to study her except when he 
is in love with her, and when he is in love 
with her he never studies her with his eyes 
open. 

And therefore, my dear child, strange as 


The “ Woman's Man ” 61 


it may appear to you, the only man who 
ever gets to know a woman is the man who 
associates with her without loving her, who 
enjoys her society without paying court to 
her, who takes pleasure in her company 
without submitting to the fascination of her 
manners, who basks in her smile without a 
thought of tasting the sweetness of her lips, 
who presses her hand ten times a week and 
only kisses it once a year. 

Fortunate the woman who has such a 
man on her list of male friends. She will 
get more comfort out of him than she would 
out of a dozen lovers. He will never praise 
her eyes, go into ecstasy over her figure, 
pass eulogiums on her wit, commend her 


62 


The “Womans Man” 


grace or laud her manners ; but she will 
long for him as a man does for an after- 
dinner cigar and cup of black coffee. Un- 
consciously she will push his chair in place 
and thrust her handkerchief into a drawer, 
knowing that he dislikes perfumes ; but it 
will never occur to her to put on any par- 
ticular gown, for she knows that he never 
looks at such things. In fact, one evening 
he found her seated in a wicker rocker 
swathed up from ankles to throat in a de- 
liciously soft bath robe of a delicate cream 
hue. 

She had just left her porcelain tub, and 
her beautiful feet, arched like a Spanish 
girl’s and blue-veined as Italian marble, 


The “ Womans Man . 


63 


were thrust into pink mules and stretched 
out on a black satin hassock, which set 
them off as deliciously as did the ebon ped- 
estal, Galatea’s, when Pygmalion’s wide- 
opened eyes caught the first faint tremor of 
marble turned to soft, warm flesh. 

But think you the sight quickened that 
genial, friendly, customary salute, “ How 
do you do ? How have you been ?” 

Not a bit of it. 

He laid some fresh reading matter down 
for her, telling her of passages he had 
marked ; handed her a statement of some 
moneys he had collected for her, chuckled 
over scraps of gossip which she had fur- 
nished forth, set her bookshelf in order for 


6 4 


The “Womans Man.” 


her, and finally, at her request, lighted the 
alcohol lamp under the tiny nickle-plated 
teakettle in order to make a cup of tea for 
her, and never once during the two hours 
that he sat alongside of her, reading and 
commenting on what he read, sipping her 
Japan tea and nibbling an Albert biscuit, did 
he appear to notice those two exquisitely- 
shaped bare feet, at one moment laid so 
coquettishly one over the other, and at an- 
other hung half mischievously over the edge 
of that hassock, with the pink morocco 
mules balanced so dangerously on the tips 
of her toes that it seemed at every instant 
one of them must fall with a gentle clack to 
the floor and lay bare the tiny foot from 


The “W omans Ma n. 


65 


which it had dropped, barer than the hand 
that now and then rested on the friend’s 
coat-sleeve, for that hand had several rings 
upon it, and yet there was no uneasiness 
visible in the man’s demeanor, no catching 
of the breath, no outburst of adoration, no 
falling upon the knees with a string of kisses 
for those blue-veined arches of beauty, 
mixed with a mumbled lot of praises, like 
a young mother’s caresses on her fresh 
bathed babe. 

When he rose to go and stood for a mo- 
ment beside her chair, she took his long, 
white, aristocratic hand in hers and patted 
it and kissed it. 

“ Oh, Arthur,” she murmured, “ you are 


66 


The “Woman's Man. 


such a comfortable man. You steal over 
me like a day dream. Your voice is like a 
can of condensed music that may be placed 
on the table, unscrewed, and enjoyed adlib., 
and your touch is as gentle as a woman’s. 
I often drop off to sleep while you are read- 
ing to me, but I am not really asleep. I 
don’t catch your words, but the rhythm of 
your voice soothes me like distant singing 
at midnight. How thankful I am that you 
never make love to me. I believe I should 
take a dislike to you if you ever called 
me by any pet name, or put an ‘ ie ’ 
to the Ruth, or insisted upon holding my 
hand. But I have something to say to 
you before you go. Sit down again, 
please.” 


The “ Womans Man! 


6 ; 


At this instant there was a gentle tap on 
the floor. Something had dropped. 

“ Oh, Arthur !” she cried, pettishly, 
“ there goes one of my mules. Put it on 
again for me, please. Thanks. Now sit 
down here by me. You know the Colonel 
has been very attentive of late, and I really 
believe that I shall succeed in bringing him 
to a declaration. He is a very eligible 
parti , vous savez , mon cher , good looks, 
good family, good income ; but there’s one 
thing that troubles me, Arthur. I don’t 
know exactly how I shall act when he pro- 
poses to me. However, from what I know 
of the Colonel’s tastes, he prefers a gushing, 
demonstrative, English sort of a girl, in 


68 


The “ Woman s Man . 


short, what I suppose would be called a 
passionate woman. Now, as I think you 
know, I am not that sort of a woman at all. 
I belong rather to the calm, steady, placid, 
well-regulated kind. 

“ I think I’m affectionate enough ; but I 
never fly off at a tangent, but pursue the 
even tenor of my way in gentle and grace- 
ful curves. But still, my dear Arthur, I 
must please the Colonel. I must make a 
good effect upon him at this important 
juncture. If such a man as the Colonel 
once gets an idea into his head, it sticks 
there. I hope you realize, my dear Arthur, 
how very important this matter is to me. 
You men can make opportunities ; but we 


The “ Womans Maul 


69 


poor women must seize what the gods send 
us. We must not presume to trifle with 
Fate. 

“ She is a woman herself, and while she 
may permit a man to coquet with her, 
she allows no one of her own sex such a 
liberty, and she rarely deigns to offer us a 
good thing a second time. Many a woman 
has thrown a pearl away in a dustpan of 
sweepings because she expected her gem to 
come to her set in chased gold. So you 
see, dear Arthur, it is really incumbent 
upon me to make a favorable impression 
upon the Colonel if I expect to get a good, 
strong hold upon my man and bring him 
finally to the marriage altar, 


70 


The “ Womans Man . 


“ You have been very kind to me, dear 
Arthur, and if you had wanted me your- 
self you knew that I was always to be had 
for the asking. But you never wanted 
me. You are satisfied to go like the 
children to the raree show, to look but not 
to touch. Probably you agree with that 
philosopher who says that ‘ friends such as 
we desire ardently are dreams and fables.’ 
You have never found what you wanted and 
so you only half accepted what you did 
find. But I count myself very fortunate 
to be even half accepted by you, dear 
Arthur. I’d rather be prized by Plato than 
loved by Don Juan. I’d rather win a 
Hyperion’s smile than a satyr’s touch, 


The “ Womans Man T 


7i 


The sweetest thing you ever said of me 
was to apply to me Dick Steele’s words 
about Lady Bessie Hastings that “ to know 
her was a liberal education.” 

“ I have been told by some one that the 
happiest years of Walt Whitman’s life were 
those which were blessed by a ‘ friendship- 
love ’ for a certain charming young mar- 
ried woman, in whose house, like Dr. 
Johnson at Mrs. Thrale’s, he found not 
only an unlimited supply of tea, but sponge 
cake ad libitum . 

“ Like unto your great master, Plato, 
your soul, dear Arthur, has never put into 
words that ‘ something,’ that ‘ delicious 
longing,’ that ‘ untranslatable expression,’ 


72 


The “ Womans Man. 


that ‘ mysterious yearning,’ which you have 
feared to satisfy lest life lose by its very 
addition. 

“You have feared to lay your head in 
love’s lap, not like Samson, lest you lose 
your locks, but lest that joy might kill or 
leave you forever seared. You have ac- 
cepted love’s smiles, but turned your face 
away when you scented kisses on her lips. 
You have allowed her to sit beside you, but 
never permitted the dangerous vis-a-vis. 

“ In a word, my dear Arthur, you have 
avoided that fire which i many waters can- 
not quench,’ and have warmed yourself at 
friendship’s safer flame. But for the nonce 
forget your philosophy, cease to be godlike, 


The “ Womans Man!' 73 


and be plainly human. Put your head 
down here. I want to practise on you 
before the Colonel comes. 

“ Let me throw my arms around your 
neck. No, not that way. This way, the 
right arm first. Bother, there go my mules. 
Don’t pull away from me, you foolish fel- 
low. There, there. Was that done well ? 
Were those kisses fiery enough, do you 
think ? 

“ I really couldn’t say, Ruth. I don’t 
know anything about such kisses, except 
what I’ve read in books. Good-night.” 


VI. 


THE CYNIC IN PETTICOATS. 

Dear Alphonse, if that insufferable bore, 
Hamlet, had fallen in with a cynic in petti- 
coats, instead of sweet and gentle Ophelia, 
she would have made a man of him. He 
pursued that dear girl with a relentless show 
of pessimistic platitudes, and busied himself 
working off his cheap cynicism on her when 
he should have been occupied in making 
good, old-fashioned love to her. You can 
always tell when a man is beginning to 
grow tired of a woman, for he invariably 
[74] 


The Cynic in Petticoats . 75 


proceeds to unload his ready-made stock of 
cynicism. And strange to say, it works his 
purpose admirably; it paralyzes the most 
intelligent girl ; she can’t find any words to 
ward off the attack. She may deserve her 
reputation of being the brightest girl in her 
set, but when some young whippersnapper 
in dress-coat, flicks the ashes off his cigar- 
ette and poses as a Hamlet, who, by the 
way, jilted an honest girl and then called 
her Miss Frailty, then I say the fight seems 
to be knocked entirely out of her. She 
stands helpless as a babe, and can only do 
what Mme. de Stael did when that little 
Corsican cynic made his celebrated reply to 
her silly question, take her punishment in 
silence. 


76 The Cynic in Petticoats . 


It makes my blood boil, dear Alphonse, 
when I read of a brainy woman being 
bowled over by some tu’penny platitude of 
the Solomon or Schoppenhauer school. 
It is high time that some woman published 
a book of proverbs. The world has had 
enough of such male prudes as Marcus 
Aurelius, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld and 
Fdnelon. If you aim an epigram at a 
woman you might as well say that she is no 
better than she should be and have done 
with it. A woman suffers just as much 
when you throttle her with her lover’s hand- 
kerchief as if the common hangman did 
the business. 

This is a mean world, mon cher y and it’s 


The Cynic in Petticoats. 77 


time it began to take note of its own mean- 
ness. Man has enslaved his black brother 
as if the latter were responsible for his ebon 
derm ; he has imprisoned the poor Hebrew 
for being stoned on the King’s highway, 
and has kept books away from us women 
and fed us on sweetmeats and then railed at 
us for being nothing but grown-up children. 
And last of all, when our kisses have lost 
their sweetness for him, he has suggested 
that we give up the role of Magdalene and 
try that of Dorcas ; or that we retire from 
a hard and unsympathetic world and pass 
the rest of our days with a book of maxims 
in our hands and a book of regrets in our 
hearts. Failing in all these he has strutted 


78 The Cynic in Petticoats . 


about with a parcel of platitudinous pessim- 
isms, as much too big for his mind as the 
legs of his trousers are for his calves. But 
Dieu merci / all this is now to come to an 
end, and woe betide any fin de siecle Ham- 
let who attempts to palm off his cynical 
twaddle on a debutante in her second sea- 
son, or a Summer girl in her first, such as : 
“Wise men know well enough what mons- 
ters you women make of them.” It will 
not go well with him if he does, for the 
American girl has made up her mind that 
she can play the cynic quite as well as he, 
and that although no woman as yet has 
compiled a volume of platitudinous pro- 
verbs, nor lived in anything nearer to a tub 


The Cynic in Petticoats . 79 


than a hoopskirt, still cynicism is really 
very becoming to a woman, as is proved by 
the character of Beatrice, who is really the 
most flesh and blood woman that Shakes- 
peare ever drew, the most like a girl of 
to-day. 

Her dainty irony, her delicate sarcasm, 
her piquant cynicism makes her a thousand 
times more lovable than the wordy Juliet, 
the mealy-mouthed Desdemona, the paw- 
paw Ophelia, the blustering Kate, the prig- 
gish Portia, the whining Viola or the play- 
acting Rosalind. I really believe that I 
have found “ Dear Lady Disdain ” among 
my pupils in the person of Miss Fanny B., 
of Lenox avenue, who is handsome enough 


So The Cynic in Petticoats . 


to make the recording angel look up puz- 
zled as to whether she were going out or 
coming in, but who “ cannot endure to hear 
tell of a husband.” This charming cynic in 
petticoats, dear Alphonse, is a new type of 
the American girl. She is very unlike your 
male cynic, for she is very fond of the good 
things of life and takes genuine pleasure in 
the machine man of to-day who may be 
wound up for walk, waltz or whist, for ten- 
nis or tattle, for surf, supper or salon, for 
romp, race or ride ; but the moment he 
attempts to make love to her in good earn- 
est, that moment she loses all interest in 
him. He becomes ridiculous to her; the 
cross-gartered Malvolio not more so to the 


The Cynic in Petticoats. 


81 


mischievous Olivia. She absolutely hates 
him, and pleasant as was the excusable 
embrace of the waltz, the briefest holding 
of hands now appears flat, stale and unprof- 
itable. She turns on her wooer — not with 
her pretty, pointed, pink nails thrust angrily 
out ready to mar his beauty, but with a 
delicious curl to her vermeil lip, and in her 
speech an acid just strong enough to sour 
any young man’s hopes : 

“ So you love me, dp you, Archie ? and 
you want me to marry you, too? Of 
course you know that papa is rich and that 
he has taken his money out of ‘ the Street ’ 
and invested it very carefully. That makes 
me what you boys call a splendid catch. 


82 


The Cynic in Petticoats. 


You know a good thing when you see it, 
don’t you, Archie ? They tell me that you 
worked like a beaver for several years to 
make a record as a sprinter in your athletic 
club. Let me see, it’s just two weeks * 
since you were introduced to me on the 
hotel veranda. I suppose an elopement 
would have been too expensive or you 
would have proposed it. I never could 
abide a thrifty lover, my dear Archie. You 
might have borrowed the money from papa. 

It would have been doing him a favor, for 
wouldn’t you have been in the act of tak- 
ing one of his daughters off his hands ? 

“ My dear Archie, you young men are 
too good to yourselves. The world may 


The Cynic in Petticoats . 83 


owe you a living, but, pardon me, if I fail 
to see why you should expect to have a 
pretty woman thrown into the bargain. 
You men have always set too high a value 
on what you call an opportunity. In the 
world of speculation you so often get some- 
thing for nothing that you come to image 
that the moisture of a kiss is a universal sol- 
vent which no woman’s heart is hard enough 
to resist. You forget that the kiss was the 
invention of a woman. When Ganymede 
tripped and spilt the Olympian nectar Jove 
ordered that every god and goddess should 
strike him a blow. Minerva struck him 
with a strand of her silken hair ; Mercury 
brushed him gently with his wings ; Diana 


84 The Cynic in Petticoats . 


swept his cheek with her dark eyelashes ; 
Juno dealt him a blow with a feather from 
one of her peacocks ; Bacchus sent a puff 
of his wine-scented breath into his face ; 
Apollo smote him with a sunbeam ; Pluto 
laid a black shadow across his brow ; Ceres 
blew a rose petal against his cheek ; Psyche 
breathed a sigh into his mouth ; but Venus 
pressed her lips upon his. I’m a daughter 
of Diogenes, dear Archie, and I’ll hunt my 
lover the way my father did an honest 
man, with a lantern at high noon. I don’t 
propose to buy a cat in a bag. I want to 
see whether your teeth are filled, how your 
beard grows, whether your hair is thin on 
top, whether you show your gums when 


The Cynic in Petticoats . 85 


you laugh, whether the end of your nose 
wobbles when you talk, how many freckles 
and moles you have on your face, whether 
your eyes are in focus when you tell me 
that I’m the first girl that you ever loved. 
In all earnestness, my dear Archie, I can’t 
be your wife, but I’ll be a trained nurse to 
you when you are taken ill, for then only, 
so you men say, do we become * minister- 
ing angels.’ Possibly I did wrong to let 
you kiss me, the other night, on the hotel 
veranda, but I was careful to watch you 
how you went about it. You are an artist, 
Archie, and for a man of your age, your 
technique is astonishing. Nothing but the 
strictest attention to business could ever 


86 The Cynic in Petticoats . 


have resulted in such delightful grace of 
manner and picturesque performance. 
Your gradient is one of the most charming 
I ever experienced. 

“ First you kissed a flower that I tossed 
you ; then you kissed the hem of my gown 
as you sat at my feet ; then you pressed 
your lips upon the tips of my fingers, then 
upon the back of my hand, then upon the 
palm ; then you set a silent seal of love 
upon my hair, then upon my ear, then upon 
my brow, then upon my cheek, and then, 
oh, delicious acme of love’s gentlest gra- 
dient, you stamped devotion’s invisible 
trade-mark upon my lips. I thank you for 
it, dear boy. It was well done and much 
enjoyed. 


The Cynic in Petticoats . 87 


“ I am well aware, my dear boy, how 
a young man has to divide himself up 
to go round, and, like the poor mother in 
the fairy story, make each one believe that 
she is getting the largest piece. 

“ Doubtless you think I’m a hard-hearted 
wretch. But no, dear boy ; it’s all in my 
manner. I don’t weep, simply because the 
girls in our set passed a resolution last win- 
ter to be more honest with you men than 
our grandmothers were. You have paid me 
the greatest compliment that a man can pay 
a woman. I would appreciate it more 
highly if I had not had ten of the same 
kind since I came to this summer resort. 
It’s getting to be a bit monotonous. 


88 The Cynic in Petticoats . 


“ If I had accepted you, as my chum 
Kate did last season, you would have 
doubtless done me the same honor that you 
did her, namely, to place your money on the 
horse whose name commenced with her 
initial, and put your winnings in an engage- 
ment ring. By-by, dear boy, dance the 
first waltz with me to-night.” 


VII. 

ARMS AND THE WOMAN. 

A deep thinker, my dear Professor, a man 
very much like yourself, hath most truly 
and strikingly said : “ No women, no wars ; 
no wars, no civilization/' and therefore I 
pronounce Master Maro to have been a big 
stupid or he would have taken for the sub- 
ject of his poem “ Arms and the Woman," 
and not “Arms and the Man." I prithee, 
tell me, was it not the work of a woman 
that rolled that famous apple in on the 
dancing floor where the three girls from 

[89] 


9 o 


Arms and the Woman. 


Olympia were tripping the light fantastic ? 
Was it not sweet Helen’s face that launched 
a thousand ships and burnt the topless 
towers of Illium ? 

Was it not the loss of beautiful Briseis 
with the dimpled shoulders and matchless 
limbs that caused Achilles to get that 
“ mad ” on him, the reaction from which 
proved so fatal to Hector? Was it not the 
work of cantankerous Queen Bess that led 
Philip to send the Grand Armada against 
England, the defeat of which made Albion 
mistress of the seas? Would there have 
been a German Empire to-day had it not 
been for the whims of Eugenie de Montijo ? 

Was it not the money of a rich widow 


Arms and the Woman . 91 


whom he married that enabled Mohammed 
to set up a new religion and make converts 
at the point of the scimetar? Nay, had it 
not been for the money of the widow Cus- 
tis the great Washington might have 
remained an obscure country gentleman, 
and I might now be giving French lessons 
in the capital of Her Majesty’s loyal prov- 
ince of New York. Let me hear no more 
about “Arms and the Man.” From the 
beginning woman has been a disturbing ele- 
ment, and without her there would have 
been eternal stagnation. 

She is the leaven that leavens the whole 
lump. She is the spirit of unrest that keeps 
the world moving ; her discontent is divine ; 


9 2 


Arms and the Woman. 


her moods have changed the face of the 
globe ; her tiny slipper is more powerful 
than the royal mace. A prickly hedge and 
a barbed wire fence could not have kept 
Eve in the Garden of Eden, and 10,000 
horses could not have held back pretty 
Jeanne Poisson after she had been told that 
she was a “ morsel for a king.” As Mar- 
quise de Pompadour, she lived to be vir- 
tually the Premier of France, and from her 
boudoir Louis sent his edicts to the world, 
smelling strongly of musk, and their mar- 
gins stained with wine and sweetmeats. 

I tell you, mon cher professeur , you can- 
not eliminate woman from the scheme ; she 
is what you scientific men call the “ causa 


Arms and the Woman. 


93 


causans ” — that is, not exactly the cause it- 
self, but the cause of the cause. We French 
people say, “ Cherchez la femme” but I 
would say, “ Feel for the woman,” for she 
doesn’t always reveal herself to your sense 
of sight. She is like a cat in the dark. If 
you want to locate that soft, silken coat and 
those velvety paws you must feel for them ; 
you must stretch out your hand and dive 
into the most unexpected holes and corners, 
and when you come upon her — I mean the 
cat — you mustn’t drag her out by the hind 
legs, but you must stroke and caress her 
and call her “ pretty puss,” and she will 
answer you by a soft, musical purr, and will 
rub up against you like a velvet hat brush 
and you will own that cat. 


94 Arms and the Woman. 


But, my dear Professor, we women have 
not only inspired war, we have actually 
waged it. I could name you a number of 
illustrious women who, unlike Rosalind, 
did not swoon when they looked on blood. 
There was Semiramis and Dido and Cleo- 
phea, who was brave enough to face Alex- 
ander the Great ; and Thomyris, Queen of 
the Amazons, who whipped Cyrus ; and 
Boadicea, who thrashed the Romans, and 
Zenobia, who conquered Egypt, and Vanda, 
Queen of Poland, who led her troops against 
Prince Ritagor, and beat him in two pitched 
battles. You must bear in mind that this 
is not a question of physical strength. The 
wise men and lawgivers of ancient times 


Arms and the Woman . 


were not found among the athletes. Great 
political systems are maintained by pru- 
dence, foresight and subtlety, and the fe- 
male eagle can see as far as the male, and 
the lioness has even more courage than the 
lion. 

But you cry : “ A truce, a truce to all 

this platitudinizing. I am willing to admit 
that you women have made a great deal of 
trouble in the world, and the chances are 
that you will keep it up till the end. I am 
even willing to admit that the gentle author 
of the yEneid made a blunder when he de- 
clared his purpose to sing of ‘ Arms and 
the Man.’ Anything for peace in the fam- 


g6 Arms and the Woman . 


That is just what I expected from you, 
you wretch. I suppose if you were sitting 
beside me, you would kiss my hand and 
pat my cheek and say : “ Don’t worry 

your poor little head about these important 
questions, mon enfant. Qa ne vant pas la 
peine. ” 

That’s the way with you men. You de- 
test an earnest woman. “ Little head ” in- 
deed ! I may not wear a seven and five- 
eighths, Mr. Professor, but it’s the gray 
matter that counts, and I have just as 
much of that as you have. We women re- 
fuse to be treated as children any longer. 
We ask you for bread and you give us bon- 
bons ; we ask you for books to make us 


Arms and the Woman . 97 


wise, and you give us silly novels ; we ask 
you to talk earnestly with us and you de- 
tail the gossip of the day ; we ask you to 
teach us higher mathematics and you reply 
that the most glorious straight line in the 
world is the shortest road to a woman’s 
lips ; we ask you to make us mistresses of 
the healing art, and you answer that our 
love is the only medicine that your souls 
long for ; we ask you to admit us to your 
legislative assemblies, and you respond by 
adding new luxury to our boudoirs, by re- 
gilding the walls of our drawing-rooms and 
laying down more costly rugs from the 
Orient for our feet to rest upon ; we ask 
you to take us seriously as befits the sex 


g8 Arms and the Woman. 


which has produced its Cornelias, Hypa- 
tias, Rolands, De Staels, Sands, Eliots, 
Wards, and you smile and press a button 
and order supper with that subtle brew 
from Epernay in snowy crystals, and you 
compliment the exquisite fit of our gown 
and gloves and walking boots, the charming 
chic of our hat, and you lean over and with 
closed eyes inhale the delicious odor of the 
roses, wilted by the heat of our white 
throat, and you raise our gloved hand to 
your lips and whisper : 

“ Sweet pet, you look particularly well 
to-day. Your eyes are filled with a languor 
potent enough to stay a Francis D’Assisi on 
his way to prayers ; your cheeks glow with 


Arms and the Woman . 


99 


a peachy bloom, and your lips stiand out 
with the pulpy pout of a girl of sixteen, 
and your low spirits give a celestial tone to 
your voice, like the low cry of a repentant 
peri tapping at the ivory gate of paradise — 
in a word, my darling, you look lovely and 
I am proud of you. If you want a new 
horse, or a new carriage, or a new gown, or 
a new parure of diamonds, say the word.” 

Thus it is, wretch, that you meet our 
overtures when we tire of our frivolous 
lives and long to become earnest women 
and share the responsibilities of life with 
you — hold the plow, walk the furrow, sow 
the seed, struggle with the weeds and the 
tares and share the primeval curse with you 


ioo Arms a7id the Woman. 


and earn our living by the sweat of our 
faces, wounding our tender hands with the 
thorns and thistles which an all-wise Prov- 
idence mingles with the needful grain. 

But you will not have it. You relegate 
us to the gynoecium, the harem, the serag- 
lio, the “ woman’s quarters,” the boudoir, 
literally the “ pouting ” or “ sulking room,” 
we may not even go to you when we list, 
but must await your coming. 

But, oh ! my brothers, how dearly you 
have paid for your folly. Kind heaven in- 
tended us for your yoke-fellows, for a help 
“ meet for you but you have transformed 
us into creatures not particularly coy, but 
deucedly uncertain and hard to please. 


Arms and the Woman. ioi 


You have taught us that there is more 
music in the rustle of our petticoats than 
there is in the tones of that “ still small 
voice you have loaded us with jewels, 
clasped our white throats with pearls, set 
the peerless diamond in our ears and 
twisted gems of untold value in the tresses 
of our hair, shod us with sandals of chased 
silver and placed a jeweled crown upon our 
head ; but brave and beautiful Zenobia 
walking at the tail of Aurelian’s chariot, 
with glowing cheek and flashing eye, was 
not more a slave than are we. Our revenge 
is that what people own, they must battle 
for. Cherchez la femme, feel for the woman. 
You will find her in the most unexpected 
nooks and corners. 


VIII. 


PROFESSIONAL LOVEMAKERS. 

If I mistake not, it was that transcendent 
genius, Dr. Goethe, who once described 
certain creatures “ as lisping like an angel 
when they lied.” The description applies 
to the professional lovemaker ; for such a 
genuine artist is he that his lies really sound 
sweet enough to make the listener imagine 
that some angelic being is uttering them. 
When I say “ professional lovemaker,” I 
don’t mean one of your ordinary, every-day 

summer young men of the hotel veranda 
[io 2 ] 


Professional Lovemakers . 103 


type, who is master of half a dozen set 
phrases, which he continually brings to the 
front as a Hindoo prayer wheel does the 
name of the Divinity, with something of 
that 4 damnable iteration ” referred to by 
sweet old Jack Falstaff. Oh, no, no, my 
dears, such men can hardly be said to be 
dangerous to a woman’s peace of mind. 

I once asked my vivacious pupil, Miss 
Kate, how it was that she could listen 
month in and month out to the self-same 
“ stock compliments,” which the so-called 
society man poured into her ear. 

“ Why, Mademoiselle,” she cried, “you 
forget that it is not the man only that in- 
terests me ; his clothes also occupy my at- 


104 Professional Lovemakers . 


tention. I study the style and pattern of 
his ties, the cut of his coat, the hang of his 
trousers, the shape of his collars and cuffs, 
the make and fit of his shoes. 

“ I endeavor to ascertain if possible what 
sort of garters he wears, for I never could 
love a man who allows his socks to bunch 
down over the tops of his shoes. So you 
see, Mademoiselle, while some one of the 
boys is calling me ‘ sweet angel,’ or telling 
me that ‘my eyes have Juno’s lids and 
Hebe’s lashes,’ I am busily engaged in 
examining his trousers to see if they are 
properly creased, or am deeply interested in 
the behavior of his rebellious shirt front, 
which seems bent upon leaving its narrow 


Professional Love 7 nakers. 105 


confines and enveloping its black-habited 
owner in an avalanche of starched linen.” 

The professional lovemaker to whom I 
refer, is a sort of Mephisto in dress coat, 
so thoroughly deodorized and perfumed as 
to deceive the very elect. He is both 
devilishly divine and divinely devilish, and 
truly, when such a lover is telling his big- 
gest whoppers, he “ lisps like an angel.” 
What is his object ? Why, he is a vivi- 
sectionist ; he wants to watch the effect of 
his delicious venom on his beautiful vic- 
tims. 

He is a painter, a sculptor. He is after 
colorings and contours ; he is an anatomist 
in erotics. He could write a big book on 


1 06 Professional Lovemakers. 


“ The Subtle Art of Kissing a Woman Who 
Refuses to Be Kissed ;” he could pen a 
delightful treatise on the “ Emotions of a 
Sentimental Lover Upon the Occasion of 
His Fiftieth Conquest he could prepare 
any number of dainty recipes such as: 
“ How to Overcome the Objections of a 
Pronounced Prude,” “ How to Woo a 
Young Widow,” “ How to Approach an 
Ingenue” “ How to Treat a Woman With 
Too Much Conscience,” “ How to Weaken 
a Devotion to an Ideal,” “ How to Deaden 
a Remembrance for a Lost Love.” 

“ Charming, charming,” you cry, and de- 
mand to know what possible harm there 
can be in a woman’s receiving the atten- 


Professional Lovemakers . 107 


tions of such a delightful professional. 
Why, say you, it must be the very 
quintessence of iovemaking, for all the 
world like being the heroine of a play and 
enjoying the passionate outpourings of the 
leading man’s too full heart as he stalks 
into the room, pale with suppressed 
emotion, faultlessly clad in a body coat and 
English trousers, laced patent leather 
shoes, silk hat and boutonniere of violets, 
all ready to brush away your last objection 
with an outburst of highly grammatical 
English and to catch you up in his arms 
with some turbulence and press you con- 
vulsively to his breast, while he scatters 
kisses broadcast over the top of your head 


io8 Professional Love-Makers. 


and packs your ears with pet names, till 
you think to yourself, “ Why, mon Dieu, 
Tom was only an amateur at this business ; 
he was as clumsy as a clown, never knew 
his lines, never came on at exactly the 
right time, never got his arms in exactly 
the right position, never suited the word to 
the action, never was up in the business of 
the situation, never took the least trouble 
to work things up to a delicious cttnoue- 
ment y a captivating climax. Dear me, 
what an amount of time I have lost, all 
from having fallen in with a stupid amateur 
instead of a genuine professional.” Oh, 
my dears, what poor, weak, unreasonable 


Professional Lovemakers . 109 


creatures you are when there is a man in 
the case. 

You have not changed a hair since the 
day that Monsieur Satan, the first profes- 
sional lover, made his afternoon call on 
Adam’s wife, entering the drawing room 
faultlessly attired, wearing in his button- 
hole a rare exotic, the like of which had 
never grown in the Garden of Eden. Now 
there was no thought in Monsieur Satan’s 
mind that clashed with the divine precept, 
“ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.” 
He was there with no other intent than to 
amuse himself — for Monsieur Satan is a 
terrible sufferer from ennui — by the exer- 
cise of his power as a professional. 


I IO 


Professional LovemakerS. 


Do you imagine for a moment, my dears, 
that it is the love of money that keeps the 
professional on the stage long after he has 
accumulated a competence? Why, of 
course not, you little idiots. It is the ex- 
ercise of his power that fascinates him and 
holds him there. And so it is with the 
professional lovemaker. He never tires of 
his art. When in the eighties, Goethe ex- 
ercised his art on a young girl of twenty, 
and enslaved her as completely as if he 
were only ten years her senior. Franklin 
had the same power, and so had Lord 
Bolingbroke and Mirabeau and Aaron 
Burr. 

Such a man, my dears, is incapable of 


Professional Lovemakers . \ 1 1 


loving a woman, for the simple reason that 
he is, heart and soul, in love with himself. 
His poems dedicated to her and his letters 
addressed to her, glow with the warmth of 
an Ovid, burn with the fire of a De Musset, 
give off the sparkle of a Gautier and the 
delicious odor of a Keats ; but this is all 
counterfeit ; counterfeit of the basest sort, 
for you could not warm your finger nails at 
such a flame. At heart he is as cold as 

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden. 
Whom mortals call the moon. 

You must bear in mind, my dears, that 
while the professional lovemaker may flatter 
your vanity, yet you are paying dear for 
the amusement he furnishes you, for I 


1 12 Professional Lovemakers . 


insist upon it, that a woman parts with 
some of her natural sweetness with every 
kiss she sets upon a male mouth. You 
may not feel the loss at the time, but the 
effect is cumulative, as the doctors term 
it. You are just so much poorer after a 
rencontre with the professional lover. 

You have rubbed off a little of your bloom 
on the lapel of his dresscoat. He is like 
that black-coated little voluptuary, the 
bumble bee, which tumbles head first into 
a luscious lily cup and rolls himself in the 
golden pollen so that he hasn’t strength to 
fly home until he has kicked some of the 
sweets off his legs. Doesn’t he do any 
harm ? 


Professional Lovemakers . x 1 3 


Is there plenty of the pollen left ? Ah, 
my dears, don’t make a mistake, the dain- 
tiest nostrils in the world can’t sniff at a 
rose without doing it some harm. 




IX. 


SUMMER MORALS OF THE NEW 
YORK GIRL. 

Taking my cue from the great English- 
man, Shakespeare, who discovered that there 
could be “ method in madness,” I set 
about writing to you to-day, mes chers , con- 
cerning modishness in immorality. In this 
land of surprises, morals are largely a mat- 
ter of temperature. In other words, the 
thermometer is more or less responsible for 
petty lapses in great principles. It was an 

easy task for the Puritan Fathers to lead 
[114] 


The New York Girl. 


1 15 


correct lives when the mercury registered 
forty below zero, but it was not many years 
before the fervency of the New England 
summer began to tell on the collars and 
characters of these stern religionists, and the 
“ faith and morals which Milton held ” suf- 
fered from dog-day weather. 

When Schamyl, the stoic king of the 
Caucasus, visited Moscow and Petersburg 
and found the Russian women reading 
French novels and wearing Paris dresses, he 
looked around for the cause of the corrup- 
tion. Nor was he long in coming upon it, 
for every drawing-room was as hot as a 
Russian bath. In the crisp air of that north 
land you might, unless warned in time, lose 


1 1 6 The New York Girl. 


the tip of your nose, but helas , mes amis y 
indoors you might lose that of infinite more 
worth. 

Piety in this great city is largely a thing 
of winter wear ; it looks well in a sealskin 
shoulder cape, it adds to the grace of a per- 
fectly fitting tailor-made, it sets off a pic- 
turesque felt hat ; it serves admirably as 
garniture to rich, dark colors and heavy 
ribbed and brocaded stuffs. 

The cool atmosphere of a Fifth Avenue 
church makes you personally comfortable 
and enables you to give your neighbor a 
thought. 

It is not pleasant to perspire while you 
are at prayer. 


The New York Girl. i 1 7 


The New York girl knows all this, hence 
her devotions are about ended when spring 
cleaning begins and her velvet covered 
prayer book is packed away in the cedar 
chest. 

As one of my pupils once said to me : 
“ Ah, Mademoiselle, it is very hard to love 
one’s neighbor as one’s self when you feel 
sticky and uncomfortable and are quite cer- 
tain that your hair is out of crimp and that 
your nose has lost its artistic dull finish, 
and you feel more like a loose wrapper and 
a French novel than you do like gloves, 
veil, and a chapter of that insufferable old 
growler, Paul, who hated pretty women 
because his deacons made eyes at them. 


1 1 8 The New York Girl. 


“ Then again, Mademoiselle,” continued 
this sweet girl penitent, “ churches smell 
close and musty in summer, an odor alto- 
gether so earthy as to be be rather unpleas- 
antly suggestive. A dry furnace air well 
perfumed is more conducive to piety just as 
velvetand plush incline our thoughts to char- 
ity. I am always frivolous in summer stuffs, 
and for the time being don’t care a rap 
for my neighbor’s lack of the good things 
of life. Let him turn tramp and lie down 
among the daisies for the summer months.” 
You will be surprised, I know, when I 
tell you that most American churches close 
their doors with the coming in of summer, 
the pastors going to Europe and their 


The New York Girl. 


119 


flocks to the watering places. They meet 
again in October, but I am quite sure they 
don't exchange confidences. This annual 
relaxation of the moral fibre, this yearly 
loss of ethical tone is something peculiarly 
American ; but the natural result is, as you 
may readily infer, that the pastor’s con- 
trol over his flock is of the most shadowy 
kind. 

In a few years, mes chers y the American 
clergyman will find himself very much in 
the position of the old saints in this country 
— an ornament in stained glass, visible only 
on state occasions when all the gas jets & re 
lighted regardless of expense. 

I have observed that the crop of divorce 


120 


The New York Girl. 


suits is always heaviest after the summer 
season is over. 

What are the poor lambs to do when the 
good shepherd is cooling his parched tongue 
with a sorbet on the Boulevard des Italiens, 
or refreshing himself in the cool pastures of 
Piccadilly and the Haymarket?- 

You would be astounded, mes Ires chers , 
to note the tyranny of mode over here 
among these children of the Puritans. Dur- 
ing the next century I predict that some 
one Church will become the fashionable cult 
and that all others will fall into vapid and 
vacuous inaction. 

It remains to be seen which Church will 
be astute enough to emulsify the old faiths 


The New York Girl \ 


I 2 I 


with comfortable philosophy and make the 
compound palatable and easily digested. 

When that day comes the summer code 
will differ greatly from its cold and formal 
brother, the winter catechism, and you will 
hear some fair and practical penitent say : 
“As soon as summer comes and the warm 
weather rules go into force, I shall have an 
understanding with Jack, and if he can’t 
increase my allowance and buy another 
horse, I shall be under the disagreeable 
necessity of placing the matter in my at- 
torney’s bauds.” 

Or, “When the churches close and I 
reach the Springs, I shall lay aside mourning, 
for Tom has been dead now six months 


122 The New York Girl, 


and it does seem so ridiculous to dress like 
Penelope and think like Phryne. 

Or, “ Just as soon as warm weather piety 
comes into fashion I am firmly resolved to 
get rid of old B. He has lost health and 
money and I am too young and too pretty 
a woman to sacrifice my life to mere senti- 
ment. It is perfectly preposterous to 
expect a woman with my figure and com- 
plexion to play hospital nurse when my 
friends assure me that I am gifted with 
unusual powers of fascination. 

“ Old B. has been very kind to me for the 
past ten years, but he has had his reward — 
namely, the reputation of having the hand- 
somest wife in town. Now let him step 


The New York Girl. 


123 


aside and give some one else a chance, for 
really the world has a right to its handsome 
women. They are in a certain sense of the 
word public property, and if old B. is a rea- 
sonable man he will not oppose my divorce 
proceedings, for he may still continue to 
take an interest in me and draw a certain 
consolation from reading of my triumphs at 
the watering places and of the exquisite toi- 
lets of the ‘ former Mrs. B., of New York.’ ” 
Such, mes chers , are samples of summer 
morality as it will be when once it has be- 
come the fashion to do all one’s praying in 
winter, in order that summer fancies may 
not be clouded by thoughts of too serious 
things. 


124 77 ^ New York Girl \ 


It is an admirable arrangement, this 
division of the year into penitence and 
pleasure, but it has taken these good 
Americans two hundred aud fifty years to 
undo the work of their Puritan ancestors, 
who very thoughtlessly made their religion 
a part and parcel of their daily lives, so 
that a young woman was often in doubt 
whether she ought to laugh or pray, eat or 
go hungry ; or whether it was too near 
Sunday morning to permit her lover to re- 
tain hold of her waist, or whether Sunday 
had drawn near enough to its close to make 
kissing permissible. 


X. 

ELIMINATION OF THE OLD MAID 
FROM AMERICAN SOCIETY. 

Do you know, mes chers , that at the very 
time when I imagine that I am commencing 
to understand these Americans thoroughly, 
I am suddenly confounded by my ignorance. 
They are so many-sided. C'est ttonnant . 
One of my pupils, whom I had always 
looked upon as a genuine widow, took my 
breath away one day by calmly referring to 
her husband. 

“ Mais mon Dieu!” I exclaimed. “M. 

[» 5 ] 


126 


The Old Maid. 


Boggs,” that is his name, “ is dead, isn’t 
he ?” 

“ Oh yes, ma chbre" she replied, as she 
complacently munched a caramel. “ Boggs 
is dead enough, but Wiggins, my second 
husband, is very much alive and gives me a 
great deal of trouble at times. You see, 
Mademoiselle,” she continued, “ Boggs had 
a penchant for English blondes and French 
excentriques , so I got a divorce from him 
which carried a liberal alimony. Then I 
tried Wiggins. Wiggins proved a failure. 
Whereupon I Dakotaed him and resumed 
my former married name, out of gratitude 
to Boggs, who in the meantime had died, 
poor, dear boy, but had provided for me in 


The Old Maid. 


127 


his will. It is all very plain when you un- 
derstand it, Mademoiselle.” 

Vous voyez, vies chcrs , n est-ce pas , how 
many-sided these Americans are ? 

Well, quite lately, I have discovered an- 
other peculiarity in the society of the new 
world. It is this: That the old maid is 
being rapidly eliminated from that variable 
and uncertain organization known as the 
American family. 

In the good old time the unmarried sister 
of the husband or wife was a sympathetic, 
tender and picturesque figure in a family. 
With Parthenia’s girdle clasping her slender, 
aristocratic waist more easily than it would 
the plump body of a one-year-old babe, the 


128 


The Old Maid. 


old maid sat bolt upright at the family 
table straighter than the quaintly carved 
back of the dining-room chair, looking like 
an autumn lily, tipped with the yellow of 
an early frost. 

In her presence no lips were bold enough 
to drop a risque phrase, no mouth indelicate 
enough to utter a double entendre , no tongue 
so unruly as to relate a bit of piquant scan- 
dal. There she sat, the vestal virgin of the 
household, the type and sampler of all 
purity, sweetness and patience to us of the 
younger generation, the very mirror of 
female virtue, the mold of gracious fem- 
ininity. She was as picturesque as the old 
brass andirons and, with her waxy, trans- 


The Old Maid. 


1 29 


parent skin and snow-white fichu , she 
“ furnished ” better than any portrait in our 
ancestral hall. 

Don’t you remember her, mes iris chers, 
don’t you remember our dear, unmarried 
Aunt Cecilia, so thin, so tall, beneath whose 
tiny, shell-like ears ran such blue veins, and 
across the backs of whose hands veins that 
had never swollen beneath a warmer kiss 
than her brother’s ? Don’t you remember 
her great, blue eyes, so deep and limpid, 
eyes that had never clouded beneath a 
lover’s glance, her slender figure slowly 
shriveling ’neath the chill of an ungained 
love, like an unplucked apple touched by 
an October frost ? How sweet and sad 


130 


The Old Maid. 


her smile was and what a perpetual benison 
it was ! Well, one morning I entered her 
room without knocking and surprised her 
en corset. I was astounded, and I recollect 
how I stammered out an apology as I stood 
and gazed upon the dying glory of that 
beautiful form. 

“ Why, Aunt Cecilia,” I murmured, 
1 what a lovely neck ! what exquisite arms ! 
what an angelic skin ! Bon Dieti, do tell 
me why you never got married.” 

“ Ah, cltire erifantd she sighed, “ I could 
not do as they do now, pick out a husband 
as you do a pair of shoes and turn over the 
whole stock until you think you are suited, 
and then when the first pair pinches after 


The Old Maid. 


131 


wearing it a little while, kick it off and get 
another pair. No, I couldn’t get what I 
wanted, so I went without any. Voila 
tout /” she added, with a shrug of those 
beautiful shoulders. 

Eh bien , ntcs chers , this picturesque per- 
sonage has ceased to exist on this side of 
the Atlantic. How it came about, you ask ? 
Simply enough : The moment the grass 
widow was accorded recognition, that mo- 
ment there was no longer any raison d'etre 
for old maids in American society. Facility 
of divorce has changed the whole nature of 
this social problem, has put an entirely dif- 
ferent aspect on the marriage question. 
From being a “ responsibility,” an “ affair 


132 


The Old Maid . 


of some moment,” a “ relation not to be 
entered into lightly,” marriage has become 
a mere accident, a mere attitude, a mere 
Delsartean pose, to be affected so long as 
becoming and no longer. In the next cen- 
tury women will marry as they now bleach 
their hair or drop one Church and take up 
another, or make trial of a new diet to im- 
prove their complexions. 

By which I mean to say that marriage 
will lose its terrors and become a merely 
aesthetic juxtaposition, and there will no 
longer be any reasonable excuse for or ex- 
tenuation of the existence among us of 
maids of mature growth. We shall go 
through the “ matrimonial experience,” as 


The Old Maid \ 


133 


it is often called over here, just as we now 
do through re-inoculation for smallpox, or 
as we change our business or do some im- 
portant thing or other to increase our 
chances for happiness and comfort. 

For several years there was numbered 
among my pupils a charming married lady, 
who inhabits an extensive apartment and 
has about her a delightful social set. I 
never miss one of her evenings at home, for 
there is just a perceptible tinge of Bohe- 
mianism about this circle that quite charms 
me. And yet, would you believe it, in all 
these years I have never had the pleasure 
of meeting “Monsieur." The cards always 
read, “ Mr. and Mrs.” However, one day 


T 34 


The Old Maid ’ 


over a cold demi-bouteille and a sandwich, 
noting that the “ Mrs.” was in a particu- 
larly expansive mood, I screwed up my 
courage and said : “ But, chbre amie , why 

is it I never meet ‘ Mo?isieur f Where does 
he keep himself ?” 

“Well, really, Mademoiselle,” she said, 
with a little gurgle of complete satisfaction, 
“ I don’t know, I haven’t seen him for 
seven years. I’m told that he passes most 
of his time in Paris.” 

“ Are you divorced ?” I queried. 

“ Oh, dear, no, chlre enfant," she laughed, 
we are about as much separated as we can 
be now. He belongs to a good family and 
I like the standing that his name gives me ; 


The Old Maid. 


135 


in a word, Mademoiselle, I am married just 
enough to protect me from those I dislike, 
and to hold fast to those that I do.” 

“ Mariage esthetique ?” I suggested. 

“ Parfaitement /” she made answer. 


AFTER THE BICYCLE GIRL, 
WHAT? 

I sometimes think, mes tres chers , that 
men have been very severe on us women. 
Saith the preacher : 

“ One man among a thousand have I found, but 
a woman among all those have I not found.” 

Pretty severe judgment, ri est-ce pas ? It 
was an English poet who defined marriage 
to be “ a kiss and a vow to be everlastingly 
miserable together.” We are charged with 


The Bicyde Girl . 


137 


having seduced all mankind, with being at 
heart rakes, with being another name for 
frailty, and it is said that sheol hath no 
fury like unto one of us scorned. 

From cover to cover the good book bris- 
tles with warnings to us. We may not un- 
cover our heads in public. Our long, flowing 
hair is termed a nudity. Think of it. The 
napes of our necks must be carefully cov- 
ered. We must not ask questions except 
of our husbands and fathers at home, and 
when we walk abroad we must not show 
the symmetry of our ankles, nor rattle our 
heels on the pavement. 

I recollect one day being severely repri- 
manded for having bitten into an apple and 


The Bicycle Girl. 


138 


handed it to a young male cousin who was 
visiting us. 

“ Fi done , Claire !” exclaimed my dear, 
good mother ; “ dost not know that Adam 
was undone by just such a kiss at second 
hand ?” And don’t you remember, too, 
mes chores , how often our poor, dear mother 
would bid us “ sit up straight and keep our 
knees together?” 

“ Oh, it was so hard to do the proper 
thing, to stand meekly and quietly by when 
the boys were riding broomsticks, waving 
laths for swords and charging the stray 
swine in the highway. 

On one occasion, carried away by the en- 
thusiasm of the moment, I mounted a 


The Bicycle Girl. 


139 


broomstick, boy fashion, and galloped off 
after the others. 

Bon Dieu! What a reprimand I received. 
It was bread and water for three days in a 
darkened room. 

“ Mais chbre maman I whispered, “la 
Pucelle (Maid of Orleans) rode man fashion.” 

“ True, my child, she did,” replied my 
mother. “ Mais c etait settlement dans cette 
manniere quelle pouvait y arriver ,” — that is 
to say, it was the only way she could get 
there. 

And that’s what the bicycle girl says to- 
day — it’s straddle or nothing. Grandmam- 
ma’s advice has been thrown to the winds. 
Lovely woman has won her biggest victory, 


140 


The Bicycle Girl. 


for after the bicycle, what is there to set 
metes and bounds to her progress ? Is not 
the boundless universe hers now ? It is not 
the first time a great question has been 
solved by a straddle, either, mes bons. 

The poor men stand by with hands lifted 
up in holy horror. The veriest rout, the 
most hardened clubman, the most accom- 
plished worldling, catches his breath and 
blushes, as the bicycle girl flits by him, her 
trim ankles glancing in the sunlight, and 
her fine figure poised in graceful equilibrium. 
He feels instinctively that she is nearer the 
goal, that she is closer upon his heels than 
ever before ; that nothing will now satisfy 
her until her chair is tilted and her neat 


The Bicycle Girl. 


i.4 1 


little buttoned boots lined up with his pa- 
tent leathers in the club window. 

Hence, I ask : After the bicycle girl, 
what? And I ask it in all seriousness, fori 
consider that the bicycle girl is proof that 
woman has firmly made up her mind to 
break away absolutely and entirely from 
the “ disabilities ” which man has put upon 
her in his various schemes to keep her in a 
condition of tutelage. 

The bicycle girl is but a foretaste of 
woman as she is to be in the middle of the 
next century. 

To grandmother’s advice : “ Sit up 

straight, don’t cross your legs, keep your 
knees together,” now comes this response : 


142 


The Bicycle Girl 


“ Bah, voas m'ennuyez, with your old-fash- 
ioned twaddle. From this time on we 
women intend to use our minds and our 
legs as we see fit. We have as much right 
to straddle a wheel as you men have, and 
when mounted thereon we don’t look any 
more ridiculous than you do ; in fact, Mes- 
sieurs, we make a better showing than you 
do. But, Messieurs , we don’t propose to 
stop here ; we propose to do away with the 
dangerous side saddle and ride our horses as 
we do our bikes — each leg where it will do 
most good. We are what heaven hath 
made us and we see no reason for being 
ashamed of it. By the middle of next cen- 
tury we shall patronize the same tailor, the 


The Bicycle Girl. 


H3 


same shoemaker and the same hatter. Our 
underclothes will be of the same style ; 
your shirts and ours will vary only in size ; 
we shall be able to loan each other a collar 
or a tie, or a handkerchief or a pair of socks. 
Pondre de riz , cosmetics, and the corset of 
to-day will be relegated to the keeping of 
the attic store-room along with the ridicu- 
lous finery of our grandmothers. We shall 
be, however, neither minotaurs nor mon- 
sters, but healthy, graceful, well-developed 
women who will be just as fond as ever of 
the pressure of that divine circle (a good, 
stout, manly arm), and the exquisite titilla- 
tion of a pair of strong, ripe, wholesome 
lips, pressed respectfully, devotedly, rever- 
ently and in rapturous parallel upon ours. 


14,4 


The Bicycle Girl \ 


But, Messieurs , prenez garde , there must 
be no more trifling, no further issuance of 
the false tokens of love. Both sexes will 
stand exactly upon the same level, and the 
emotional dissembler, be he man or woman, 
will be classed with the forger and counter- 
feiter, and the brand of shame be set upon 
him or her. We shall be harder to win, 
but worth more when got ; more reason- 
able, more serviceable, more companion- 
able, more enjoyable. Between our attire 
and yours there will be about as much 
difference as between the plumage of the 
male and female bird. Only ours will be 
the gaudier and not yours, as in the case 
of the birds. We shall have no pleasures, 


The Bicycle GirL 


145 


no amusements, no recreations except in 
common, and, although we shall not, as did 
the Spanish women in the Middle Ages, 
make use of plates of lead to flatten our 
busts, yet our figures will most surely 
undergo a change. Juno and Ceres will 
part with their plenitude of charm ; Venus 
surrender up her look of over-ripeness ; 
Diana do a little banting, and Minerva 
grow somewhat less in bust measure- 
ment. 

The successor to the bicycle girl, the 
middle of next century girl, will be a deli- 
cious compound of Hebe and Ganymede 
— the boy woman, with the eyes of a heifer 
and the voice of a contralto, with the face 


4 6 


The Bicycle Girl. 


of a gentle lad and the limbs of a female 
trapeze performer ; with the teeth of a 
young dog, the cheek of a peasant lass, and 
the breath of a cow that has been nibbling 
wild mignonette. When this happy day 
dawns the ordinary love songs of to-day 
will sound as ridiculous as the tender pas- 
sages of the Song of Solomon do to us now. 
And yet, Messieurs, don’t be solicitous, 
for we shall be just as lovable as Juliet, just 
as kissable as Kate, just as adorable as 
Beatrice, just as fascinating as Rosalind, 
just as entrancing as Cleopatra, just as 
huggable as Cressida, who had “ language 
in her eye, her cheek, her lip — whose very 
feet could talk.” 


GARDEN PARTIES, OR FLIRTA- 
TION AL FRESCO. 

Did it ever occur to you, mes trh chers , 
how men differ in their selection of love's 
trysting place? One of our countrymen 
prefers a “ cabinet particular ” in some 
charming road-house, where he may make 
love over a little cold fowl and a small bot- 
tle ; a Spaniard meets his chere anti at a 
bull fight, an Italian follows her to mass, a 
German selects a picnic, an Irishman, the 
sidewalk, an Englishman or an American 

[' 47 ] 


148 


Garden Parties . 


takes to the woods, or next best place, to 
the garden. Shakespeare’s plays are full of 
forests and gardens and bowers. 

The garden party wasn’t invented ; it 
grew. 

When a celebrated educator exclaimed : 
“ Give us more books for our children ; 
they are mentally starved,” an American 
mother rejoined : “ Give us more young 
men for our daughters ; they are heart- 
hungry.” 

Ah, mes chers , quel plaisir, it is for a girl 
to have a bank of real clay to dig her 
French heels into when Jack or Charlie 
gets hold of her gloved hand and his breath 
comes to her cheek sweetened by the birch 


Garden Parties. 


149 


twig he has been chewing, and there is no 
danger of being overheard and no clock to 
strike or door to slam just as he draws near 
to that dread yet delightful declaration 
which sounds sweeter to a girl every time 
she hears it ! 

That Englishman was wrong when he 
said that in the spring a young man’s fancy 
turns to thoughts of love. 

July and August are the lover’s months. 
By that time everything is rosy red, and 
red, you remember, is “ love’s proper hue.” 

May is too green, and June is a bit too 
damp to sit on the ground. 

Miss Blanche, whom I’m chaperoning, 
says that the ground is the proper place to 


Garden Parties . 


150 


sit when a young man is making love to 
you. There is nothing to creak there, and 
while the girl should sit discreetly upright, 
the boy may throw himself down his full 
length, and by supporting his head on his 
hand, bring it quite, if not exactly, where 
Hamlet laid his — in Ophelia’s lap. 

Men look well in such an attitude, while 
women need upholstery to display their 
grace — a sofa, a divan, a chaise longue. 

Nature smells the sweetest ’twixt high 
noon and twilight. Then the sun has 
awakened every perfume and the flowers — 
languid in the day-god’s fiery embrace, give 
forth their odors like perfumed sighs. 

One of the first men that I met at this 


Garden Parties . 


151 


garden party was Reggie W., who married 
a big block of Chemical Bank Stock a few 
years ago, and whose wife assures me that 
Reggie’s club dues aggregate a thousand 
dollars a year. 

Reggie wore an immaculate white flannel 
suit — a garb greatly affected by male flirts 
at American watering places. On dit y that 
this material doesn’t wrinkle, and, of course, 
doesn’t show face powder. And moreover, 
that a man in white flannel is particularly 
attractive to a woman. Goethe says that a 
blouse of a certain texture and color has 
potency to enhance the charm of an em- 
brace. 

Possibly white flannel may act the same 
way upon a maiden’s fancy. 


152 


Garden Parties . 


Reggie was delighted to meet me, and 
immediately offered to introduce “ some- 
thing very choice ” to Miss Blanche. 

“ Vous comprenez, Mademoiselle," said he, 
as he escorted me across the lawn, “ these 
garden parties are simply delightful for 
young people. It must be the oxygen, I 
think, for a fellow never has his wits about 
him in a stuffy, overheated drawing-room. 
Why, bless my soul, give me a likely widow 
and I really believe I could say sweet 
things to her myself under the influence of 
this delicious atmosphere. 

“ The trouble with our American mar- 
riages, Mademoiselle, is that, qa sent les 
doubles extraits, as you say in your language. 


Garden Parties . 


153 


I mean that the senses are moved, not the 
soul. If I am to ‘ die of a rose in aromatic 
pain/ I don’t want the attar, I want the 
real thing, long-stemmed and plenty of 
them. I want real violets, not orris root. 

“ Why, Mademoiselle, there is as much 
difference between a declaration of love al 
fresco , and what our boys call an ‘ under- 
standing ’ entered into between dances 
while sitting on the stairs, as there is be- 
tween a Maryland planked shad and a fried 
section from an ordinary boarding-house. 
I believe it was Byron who said, ‘ there is a 
pleasure in the pathless woods.’ Bah ! not 
half so much as in a graveled walk with a 
comfortable rustic seat shaded by wide- 
reaching branches, a good string band in 


*54 


Garden Parties . 


the distance and a glass of champagne 
punch and a lady’s finger to loosen tongues 
and give the two young souls a fair start.” 

“ Mats, mon Dieu , ok est done Miss 
Blanche?” I ejaculated, starting up and 
looking around for my pupil. 

“ Oh, she strolled away across the lawn 
with young Archie G.,” replied the club- 
man. “ Archie’s all right,” he continued. 
“ A capital youngster. Don’t be the least 
bit alarmed, Mademoiselle.’ ’ 

“ Mais, Monsieur , he’s a perfect stranger 
to Miss Blanche.” 

“ Not by this time, Mademoiselle. It’s 
half an hour since I introduced him to 
her.” 


Garden Parties . 


155 


“ Quelle horreur /” I exclaimed, indig- 
nantly, as I hurried away in search of Miss 
Blanche. 

In a moment or so I espied a pair of 
tiny white canvas shoes projecting out 
from behind a clump of shrubbery. 
Blanche was seated on the ground and 
Archie was stretched out full length beside 
her. A pile of empty ice cream plates was 
standing on the rustic seat near at hand, 
while the skirts of Blanche’s white serge 
were literally snowed under with the burn- 
ing petals of a bunch of American Beauties 
which she had fastened on her corsage 
upon leaving the house. 

She had pulled every one of the roses to 


156 


Garden Parties . 


pieces. Archie’s hat was lying on the grass 
and Blanche’s gloves had been tossed into 
it ; her book lay on the rustic seat with his 
cane across it ; his regiment badge had 
been transferred from its place on his 
breast to a spot as near over Blanche’s 
heart as possible ; the corner of her hand- 
kerchief peeped out of his side pocket ; the 
diamond ring worn on his little finger 
glistened on the third finger of her left 
hand ; the collapsed puff of one of her 
sleeves told that Archie’s head had been 
against her shoulder ; her King’s Daugh- 
ters’ badge dangled from his watch chain ; 
his penknife was in her hand and she was 
whittling a birch twig ; her fan was in his 


Garden Parties . 


157 


and he was twirling it nervously ; the 
laces of one of her tiny white canvas shoes 
was tied man-fashion ; the bunch of white 
asters which I had noticed in his button- 
hole was held lovingly against her throat by 
a clasp-pin ; a bit of pink ribbon clipped 
from her hat string was tied in his button- 
hole ; a feather from her boa was thrust into 
the band of his broad brim ; his silver 
cigarette case glistened in her lap and a 
single golden hair from the glorious treas- 
ure of her poll lay on his breast, caught in 
the nap of his white flannel coat. 

“ Mats , bon Dieu /” I gasped in unutter- 
able bewilderment, “how did those two 
children get mixed up in that style in one 


Garden Parties . 


158 


brief half hour ?” Not until we had reached 
our carriage and I had my charge safely by 
my side did I dare to draw a long breath. 

But imagine my feelings when Blanche 
suddenly threw her arms around me and 
murmured in soulful accents : “ Isn’t he 
delightful, Mademoiselle ? We are to be 
married in November.” 


THE END. 




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